Eugene is out in full force.

Eugene is a whole different city after college students leave for the summer. Any pretence of community normalcy goes straight out the window within five days after the graduation commencements. When the U of O populace pours out of town and heads homeward, Eugene's boldest and bizarrest and most colorful characters flock to the streets to parade around conspicuously in cross-dress and talk weird to themselves--and I have to say, I absolutely love it. Sometimes I privately think to myself that they must be wizards trying to act like muggles and totally failing to pull it off, in a most marvelous way.

Just on my five-minute drive to the market yesterday, I saw a man in a short brown women's bathrobe and electric aqua women's dress shoes sauntering down the sidewalk by Euphoria Chocolatiers. And two minutes later, while I was stopped at an intersection, a man wearing nothing but a Utilikilt, who had flaming red hair, a huge bristly beard, and an oversized beer dispenser perched atop his head, bicycled through the crosswalk, beer straw in mouth. So much for brown-bagging it.

Last fall I literally saw a guy biking through town while practicing the tuba. And there's also an old guy who quite regularly cycles through campus in very Gandalfish regalia: he wears a weather-worn cape and a strange hat with a large brim, ala the White Wizard. I'm fairly certain there's a portal somewhere near the Women's Building on campus that leads to Middle-earth.

Three cheers for Eugene, Oregon.